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With public trust in the government, major corporations, and the media at historic lows, nonprofit organizations are among the most trusted institutions in America, according to an article from the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy. Perhaps in fear of jeopardizing that strong standing in public opinion, nonprofits are reluctant to be seen as politically active, according to a team of three nonprofit researchers, including Mirae Kim, associate professor and master of public administration program director at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government.
After finding evidence that indicated a drastic decline in political advocacy by nonprofit organizations, the team’s subsequent research reveals that what instead has changed is how the sector defines “political advocacy.” In today’s polarized society, nonprofit organizations have adopted a more measured approach to advocacy.
In this new report released in October by Independent Sector, Kim and her colleagues provide a deeper analysis of the provocative Public Engagement Nonprofit Survey (PENS) conducted by the same team in 2023. In that survey, they discovered that only 31 percent of nonprofits reported engaging in political advocacy or lobbying in the last five years, which is less than half of the percentage of nonprofits that reported lobbying in 2000 (74 percent). This extreme reduction led them to examine the data more closely to determine the cause behind this reported decline.
Through in-depth interviews with 40 PENS respondents, Kim and her colleagues found that nonprofit leaders continue to value their role in giving visibility to the issues of their members and service recipients. Concurrently, they emphasized the need to maintain a nonpartisan or bipartisan stance as a strategic response to the current political climate. This means that nonprofits work carefully to position their advocacy efforts as directly aligned with their mission and the needs of the communities they serve.
Kim explains that the decline in political advocacy identified by PENS can be attributed to wariness among nonprofit organizations toward being seen as political out of fear that being seen as “taking sides” would hurt their reputation as nonpartisan advocates for the public good. This mindset is concerning, says Kim, because nonprofits often have a lot to contribute to discussions of public policy.
“If you are a nonprofit that serves homeless populations (for example), you can make a lasting change by engaging in policy discussions that create systemic change,” she said.
While a homeless shelter might aim to invest in additional beds to provide a safe place to sleep for larger numbers of people, Kim suggests that engaging in policy discussions about the root causes of homelessness might ultimately deliver an even larger impact. As Kim emphasizes, nonprofits that provide services are uniquely positioned to provide key insights into the issues they work with.
“Nonprofits serve these people every day, and so if you’re a nonprofit that serves the homeless population, then you are an expert on the homelessness issue, compared to people on the outside who never really met a homeless person,” she said.
The PENS project builds on the seminal Strengthening Nonprofit Advocacy Project (SNAP), a highly referenced dataset released in 2000. As the only other survey of its kind, PENS fills a 20-year gap in the data on the nonprofit sector’s attitudes toward civic engagement and advocacy, allowing scholars like Kim to study how approaches in the nonprofit sector have changed over time. PENS expanded beyond the original SNAP survey to include questions about two developments since 2000: civic engagement by social welfare organizations whose lobbying activities are not restricted (“501c4” according to the Internal Revenue Service terminology) and the use of social media by nonprofit organizations.
“One finding of note,” said Kevin Miller, Independent Sector’s director of research and policy analysis, “is that nonprofit organizations, when asked about how important social media is for various purposes, often identified mobilizing for in-person events as more important than other uses of social media.”
Read the qualitative data report released this month, as well as the original report at Independent Sector.